99 weeks.

Editor,

If unemployment is projected to remain between 8.8 percent and 9 percent this year, then it certainly can not be expected to plummet to 4% next year. So why is 99 weeks the maximum amount of time a formerly productive, tax-paying -- now jobless -- worker is allowed to collect unemployment benefits? Does the larceny of the banker class, which caused the collapse of the American real economy, suddenly become the fault of an American worker after he or she has been jobless for 99 weeks?

Re: "Fed Forecasts Faster Growth as Economy Gathers Steam" (2/17/2011)